Bill W. is the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, an international organization with over two million members seeking to help individuals escape from alcoholism. Bill W. was an alcoholic himself who was able to quit drinking after a profound spiritual experience gave him a new outlook on life. To help him stay free from alcoholism he spent the remainder of his life working with other recovering alcoholics.

EARLY LIFE

Bill Wilson was born on 26 November 1895 in East Dorset, Vermont. to Gilman and Emily Griffith Wilson in the middle of a snowstorm and behind the bar of his grandparents' hotel.

Bill had a sister, Dorothy, who was four years younger than he. Bill's otherwise happy childhood in rural Vermont was shattered when, at the age of 11, his parents divorced. This trauma was accompanied by feelings of abandonment when his father moved to British Columbia and his mother to Boston where she studied osteopathic medicine and was one of the first women to receive a degree from Harvard University. It was around this time that Bill experienced the first of a series of depressions that he faced throughout his life.

His upbringing in Vermont was troubled. At school, he was rebellious and often got into trouble, though he was skilled at football and became the school’s principal violinist. He experienced periods of depression and anxiety, especially after his first girlfriend Bertha Bamford died from surgery. Later, he recalled memories of his childhood days.

“I was tall and gawky and I felt pretty bad about it because the smaller kids could push me around. I remember being very depressed for a year or more, then I developed a fierce resolve to win—to be a No. 1 man.” (NY Times)

BILL MEETS LOIS

In 1913, Bill's life took an upward turn when he was introduced to Lois Burnham of Brooklyn Heights, New York, the daughter of a respected physician. Lois, who summered in Vermont with her parents and four siblings, was four years Bill's senior. Despite this difference, the two were attracted to each other, though they did not become romantically involved for a few years. Bill eventually enrolled in Norwich University, a military college, which prepared him well for World War I.

In 1916, he was drafted into the Vermont National Guard after border tensions with Mexico escalated due to the activities of revolutionary general Franciso Pancho Villa. In the company of the military, Bill developed a taste for drinking copious amounts of alcohol. It was part of the social scene, but he found alcohol helped deal with his anxiety and social tension, and he soon found that he began drinking very heavily.

Bill left shortly before graduation to join Coast Artillery in 1917 and advanced through training in Plattsburgh, New York, where he discovered an innate talent for leadership. That led to additional training at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and a commission as second lieutenant. On 24 January 1918, he married Lois in the Swedenborgen Church in Brooklyn Heights. For the remainder of the year, he served in the US Army which was now involved in the First World War.

Waiting in England for deployment to France, Bill's regiment was bivouacked near Winchester, England, and Bill one afternoon visited that city's great cathedral. While there, Bill had an ecstatic experience of the overwhelming presence of God, which filled and reassured him as no other experience had ever done. Upon walking through the cathedral's cemetery, he saw to the tombstone of Thomas Thetcher who Bill thought might be an ancestor of his friend Ebby Thatcher. Bill was so amazed by the epitaph written there that he remembered it years later while writing his own story for the book Alcoholics Anonymous: "Here lies a Hampshire Grenadier/ Who caught his death/ Drinking small cold beer./ A good soldier is ne'er forgot/ Whether he dieth by musket/ Or by pot".

After the war, he moved with Lois to New York, where he gained employment as a stock speculator. Bob travelled around the country investigating companies which were worth investing in. He made substantial amounts of money buying shares in under-valued companies. However, his business success was combined with heavy drinking. He was unaware of the damage it was doing but saw it as a necessity of life. He remembered: “In those Roaring Twenties, I was drinking to dream great dreams of greater power.”

DESCENT INTO ALCOHOLISM

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, saw stocks plummet and Bill struggled even more in the new climate of bankruptcy and despair. He wanted to ‘build this up once more’, but his only recourse was to hit the bottle. He was consuming two quarts of ‘rotgut’ (bootleg) whiskey daily. Eventually, in 1933, he was committed to Towns hospital in New York for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. His doctor William D. Silkworth viewed alcoholism as a combination of lack of mental control and a physical inability to stop drinking once started. His doctor warned Bill that if he could not stop drinking, he would die early or face being permanently locked up. He made some partial efforts to stop drinking but suffered early relapses on release. His body also experienced withdrawal symptoms when he stopped.

In November 1934, Bill was visited by his old drinking friend Ebby Thacher, who Bill knew to be a severe alcoholic but who was miraculously sober. Ebby had joined a group under the guidance of an evangelical Christian Oxford Group church. The Oxford Group was a spiritual fellowship popular in the early half of the 20th century. It had no membership, dues, paid leaders, creed, or theology. Its appeal laid in the application of certain principles in daily living, namely honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Oxford Groupers, as they were called, had success with those trying to stop drinking, such as Ebby. When he, an incessant drinker, was sober two months, he went to visit the worst alcoholic he knew to pass on his spiritual experience and its result. That alcoholic was Bill Wilson. They sat at the kitchen table in Brooklyn Heights  (this table is now at Stepping Stones) on which Bill had placed gin and pineapple juice, but Ebby refused to imbibe. He had stopped drinking, explaining, "I've got religion."

At the time, Bill was depressed and despairing of being able to turn his life around. He became receptive to Ebby’s story to accept God’s help. Lying in a hospital bed Bill remember Ebby T, saying to him: "Why don't you chose your own conception of God?", he could argue no longer and gradually opened to a larger notion of God, of a Power greater than himself. (It was Ebby's statement, translated later in AA's steps as "God as we understood Him", that has enabled those from all sorts of religious backgrounds and those without any to avail themselves of "this simple program." AA is spiritual, not religious, and its members' conception of God is personal and, at times, unique.)

After sharing his experience and wondering whether he was crazy, his doctor, Dr. William D. Silkworth said to Bill that: “No, Bill, you aren’t crazy, something has happened to you I don’t understand. But you had better hang on to it. Anything is better than the way you were.” Dr. Silkworth believed that alcoholism was a physical allergy to alcohol and not a moral malady. This allergy was triggered by consumption of even a small amount of alcohol by some people that caused a compulsion to drink along with a mental obsession to do so. This concept was so new at the time that when Bill asked Dr. Silkworth to expand on it in "The Doctor's Opinion" for the book Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Silkworth did so anonymously. It was only years later, when this theory gained acceptance, that he allowed his name to be used.

Although Bill's drinking continued, Ebby's visit opened an avenue of possibility of sobriety. Entering Towns Hospital in December 1934, Bill's life was utterly changed by a transforming spiritual experience that resulted in his never needing to take another drink of alcohol for the rest of his life.

BILL MEETS DR. BOB

Six months into his own sobriety, Bill and a couple of friends found a small company in Akron, Ohio that was ripe for takeover and would pull Bill and Lois out of their severe financial situation. It was not to be. The deal collapsed, probably on stories of Bill's drinking, and Bill, dejected and distressed, returned to the city's Mayflower Hotel where he nearly drank again.

Tempted by the lure of the bar, Bill headed to the public phone booth instead and desperately sought another alcoholic, someone like himself to talk to. After a series of calls Bill eventually contacted one Dr. Robert H. Smith, an Akron surgeon and sometime attendee at Oxford Group meetings. Agreeing to the meeting only to appease Anne, his wife, Dr. Bob was determined to spend no more than 15 minutes with this man who claimed to have a "cure" for alcoholism. The two men went into a room for what Bob thought would be a quick talk, but he was mistaken. They finally stopped talking about five hours later.

Smith himself was an alcoholic and wanted to pursue a similar path to Bill in exploring the potential of spiritual experience to help him give up alcohol. Dr Bob was impressed with the down to earth language and practical advice Bill used. He said: “Bill was the first living human with whom I had ever talked who intelligently discussed my problem from actual experience,”

Dr Bob Smith was able to successfully give up alcohol until his death in 1950.

Bill stayed in Ohio three months working with Bob to help get other men sober. Bob drank once again a couple of weeks later after coming home from a medical conference in New Jersey. The date of Dr. Bob's last drink is June 10, 1935 - the founding date of Alcoholics Anonymous, the day there were two sober people in fellowship, and the day Dr. Bob drank for the last time.

Bill W. returned to New York, where he was active in a local Oxford group committed to overcoming alcoholism. He felt the group was a real success and helped to make a difference to those wishing to give up alcohol. At this point, the group decided they should try to publicize their practices and principles to help a much wider audience. His new group split from the Oxford Movement, but on good terms, with Bill W repeatedly praising the good work and spirit they offered.

Impatient to spread his ideas and suffering from the poverty of the Great Depression, Bill W. and Dr Bob approached businessman and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller to seek financial support for an extension of the programme. However, Rockefeller turned them down saying ‘I think money will spoil this.’ They took his advice and AA doesn’t accept outside donations but is self-funding from members. Instead, Bill W. was chosen to write the precepts of the book, which came to be called “Alcoholics Anonymous.” Bill W was known for his economy of words and conciseness.

The book was a great success and soon Alcoholics Anonymous groups became formed across the country. This led to more questions and controversies which were directed towards Bill W in New York. By April 1946, he refined the principles of the movement into “Twelve Points to Assure Our Future.”

In 1939, Bill and his wife also set up in Kent, CT an alcohol and addiction recovery centre founded on his principles of alcoholics anonymous.

Bill W. felt the over-riding goal of the movement should be to aid and offer assistance to those individuals wishing to give up drinking. He felt the most important factor was the openness to a higher power who would give inner strength. He also wished the group to be democratic and maintain anonymity – this stemmed from a desire to reduce ego, personalities and give people the confidence they could come to the group without being judged. He insisted the group focus only on the issue of welfare of members and avoid any political issue or political comment – even on issues like alcohol reform.

The cornerstone of AA is the Twelve Steps, a spiritual program of recovery, written by Bill who expanded it from the basic six tenets of the Oxford Group. Bill would later write the Twelve Traditions, a guide for fellowship members on how to avoid the pitfalls to which other groups had succumbed. The traditions are to the groups of AA as the steps are to the individual and are designed to keep AA as a whole vibrant and focused on "our primary purpose."

In 1953, after the organization’s first international convention had approved the principles. He published the book. “Twelve Precepts of AA” During his lifetime, he never used his full name, but only Bill W.

After 1950, he retreated somewhat in visibility from the organization. He didn’t want to interfere with meetings by presenting himself as the ‘important’ co-founder. However, he continued to share his own story as “just another guy named Bill who can’t handle booze” He said his story was based on “experience, strength and hope.” He didn’t take a salary for speaking or counselling but supported himself from royalties on the four A.A books.

In the late 1950s, he experimented with LSD and spoke favorably about his impact. His use of LSD was heavily criticized by other members in the AA organization who argued it only would lead to another form of drug dependency and a new set of problems related to psychosis.

SAYING FAREWELL

In January 1971, Bill was flown in a private jet to the Miami Heart Institute in hopes of finding treatment for his severe emphysema. He is said to have been in good spirits during the flight but much weakened. Bill never received treatment; he died the day he arrived--January 24, his and Lois' wedding anniversary. They had been married 53 years.

Bill's last address to the huge annual anniversary party held in his honor in New York City two months before he died was delivered by Lois, since Bill was very ill and unable to attend. His message was based on an Arabian salutation: "I salute you, and I thank you for your lives." For those in the audience, the sentiment was undoubtedly mutual.

Death

Bill was a lifelong smoker, and towards the end of his life, he suffered from emphysema. In the last years of his life, he needed an oxygen tank to help breathing. He avoided alcohol until his very last days when he began to request whiskey. On 24 January 1971, he died from complications resulting from emphysema and pneumonia whilst travelling to Miami, Florida. He was buried in East Dorset, Vermont. After his death, his wife agreed to end his anonymity and Bill W. became published as Bill Wilson.

Throughout his life, he retained an interest in spiritualism and would conduct seances in the house. He kept these practices and beliefs separate from AA. Bill was 40 years old when he stopped drinking. He would remain sober for the remaining 35 years of his life, spending most of his considerable energy and mental acumen in helping create one of the greatest social organizations ever known, Alcoholics Anonymous. He also would be the major writer of the book Alcoholics Anonymous (aka The Big Book), after which the group would name itself; Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; and numerous articles and pamphlets.

Legacy

By 1950, Alcoholics Anonymous had helped more than 100,000 people recover from alcoholism, and by 1973, more than one million copies of the Big Book had been distributed. By 2005, the number of copies sold had reached 25 million. Since that time, the fellowship has continued to grow and has become worldwide. Today there are an estimated 100,000 A.A. groups in 150 countries, with more than two million members. The Big Book, the program’s bible, has sold nearly 25 million copies.

Bill Wilson had an enormous impact on the addiction recovery community. Alcoholics Anonymous continues to attract new members every day. There have also been many other behavioral problems that have been successfully treated with the 12 Step approach. Today members can also attend electronic meetings from any computer, cell phone, or mobile device. Dr. Bob died Nov. 16, 1950, and Bill W. passed on Jan. 24, 1971, but the legacy they left behind continues to touch the lives of millions.